


tick tick, boom

by Lint



Series: hero & villain [3]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-03 00:31:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10955970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lint/pseuds/Lint
Summary: “Lena,” she starts after a moment. “This is... It's too big. I can't just let you go.”





	tick tick, boom

**Author's Note:**

> For Twit. All of it. Sock.

“Lookout!” Supergirl shouts, streaming through the sky, dipping low enough to pull a pair of citizens away from the falling debris.

 

Just in time, she thinks. As always. The sky is practically raining with broken chunks of concrete, steel rebar, and broken glass. The explosions almost constant, as building after building comes crumbling down in the wake of concussive force. Lucky this is a particularly unused section of the warehouse district, slated for demolition at the end of the year, according to Winn. Whoever is out there having a blast is probably doing the developers a favor.

 

“Not funny,” Supergirl admonishes into her ear piece, which her friend is quick to backpedal.

 

She shoots upward again, scanning the ground for people, and through the rubble for bodies. Negative on both fronts, and she's about to give the all clear back to headquarters, when a flash of purple streaks in the corner of her eye. Her stomach instantly drops. She hasn't spoken to Lena in weeks. Not since her admission of seeing an expiration date in their future, which of course turned into that exact moment, leaving the hidden mountain layer in tears and never looking back.

 

Giving chase on pure instinct, another building goes up to her left, she just distracted enough not to notice that Lena comes swooping in on the right. Her head snaps back from the blow, shoulders spinning with the impact, as she crashes into the ground with a resounding thud. Supergirl is quick to gather herself, pushing onto her knees, neck craning up just in time to see Lena's battle suit tower over her.

 

She suddenly hates the upgraded version, in this moment, with its blank slate of a helmet. No such hindrance with that old suit of her brother's she wore, her face and every emotion it carried, exposed for all the world to see.

 

“No clever quip?” She asks, slowing pushing up on her feet. “No diabolical laugh or taunt that I'll never stop you?”

 

Winn questions into her ear why she doesn't just start punching, and Supergirl's eyes widen, suddenly glad she hadn't let something more private between them slip out.

 

“Hard to concentrate on the fight with a little birdy chirping in your ear,” Lena offers with a point toward her earpiece. “That clever enough for you?”

 

Supergirl pulls the tech from her ear, instantly crushing it inside her palm.

 

“This is all your doing?” she questions, even though her presence is the obvious answer.

 

“Just making good on my promise,” Lena replies. “That I'd burn this city to the ground.”

 

One little sentence shouldn't sting so much, but it does. Supergirl turning her head so that Lena doesn't seen the anguish pooling in her eyes.

 

“Do we have to do it this way?” She asks, looking back once her bearings are gathered, tapping at her temple. “Could you maybe, take that off?”

 

For a moment, Lena only stands there, a hulking monolith of purple and green.

 

“Isn't it easier this way, hero?” She retorts.

 

Supergirl shakes her head.

 

“Nothing about this is easy.”

 

“Then let me help you with that,” Lena continues, lifting her wrist to access a small panel on the armor, hitting a button which rocks the landscape with another explosion.

 

Supergirl doesn't flinch, knowing there are no more people to be hurt from all the wanton destruction, rather crosses her arms and holds steadfast. It's strange to hear a sigh come from the helmet, but Lena concedes to the request, removing it so they can stand eye to eye.

 

_She's so pretty._

 

It's the first fleeting thought in Supergirl's mind, and she almost reaches to brush her cheek out of habit, cursing inwardly that Lena was right. The helmet did make this easier. She might have thrown a punch, had it remained on. Might have been inclined to take her in and answer for all her crimes, like someone in her position is prone to do, but all she wants to do is pull Lena into her arms and forget the rest of the world.

 

A single curious brow lifts to Lena's forehead, as if she can read these thoughts in Supergirl's mind. Both take a step toward each other, neither with a clenched fist, when the ground beneath them rumbles from an unseen force. Their eyes catch a moment before the flash, fear and confusion broadcast between them, before blinking out in a cold calm darkness.

 

/\

 

She's been circling in her cell for hours, hasn't stopped for a second, not even to rest her feet by sitting on the cot. Kara knows because she hasn't looked away from the security monitor since Lena regained consciousness, ignoring the curious eyes of both Winn and Alex, and filling her thoughts with puppies every time J'onn happens to glance her way. They're ecstatic at the capture, because Lena Luthor has been a thorn in the side of all authority figures in National City, and it's a feather in the cap of the DEO that their agents are the ones to finally bring her in.

 

Kara puts on her best fake smile, when accepting all the pats on the back, even if she did nothing to aide in the arrest. She had simply come to first after the final explosion, and was hovering over Lena to check her vitals when the DEO came storming onto the scene. She had no choice but to let them take her, not having an acceptable explanation for why they shouldn't.

 

Lena doesn't notice when Kara enters the room, even if her footsteps echo off the metal walls, still wandering the perimeter of her cell. They let her stay in the skin tight catsuit she wears underneath the armor, no changing into prison fatigues for the unconscious, and Kara tells herself not to think about how many times she's had the privilege of removing it from her shoulders. How many times she kissed her way down Lena's neck as she'd done so.

 

She actually has to tap on the glass to get her attention, which causes her to jump, with how quickly Lena's focus snaps toward her.

 

“Yes hello,” Lena says in a rush. “Come to interrogate me then?”

 

Kara shakes her head.

 

“I came to see how you were,” she replies. “You've been here for ten hours and haven't sat down once.”

 

Lena's eyes narrow, as if Kara's concern is nothing but coercion, trying to get her defenses down to make her a more amenable prisoner.

 

“A rat in a cage is hardly idle,” she rebuffs. “Speaking of, why am I in here? That final blast wasn't, I mean I didn't-”

 

“You miscalculated,” Kara informs.

 

The look on Lena's face, it doesn't even allow the possibility, there is no chance she didn't take every square inch of those buildings she destroyed into account.

 

“Lex had a hidden cache of weapons underneath one of the warehouses,” Kara continues. “That last bomb of yours started a chain reaction. Set them all off.”

 

Lena laughs brokenly. Once again her brother's own misdeeds come back to bite her.

 

“Which begs the question, why were you vaporizing old Lex Corp properties?”

 

Lena shrugs, having no answer prepared. Sometimes she just does things. Bad things.

 

“Are you hungry?” Kara asks. “The food here isn't that great, but I could get you somethi-”

 

“No,” Lena interrupts. “Thank you. It's difficult to have an appetite in a place such as this.”

 

“Some water then?” Kara offers. “You must be thirsty with all that pacing.”

 

“I'm fine,” Lena insists with a sigh, head tilting toward the floor. “I suppose it was always meant to end like this, wasn't it? The villain caught, and the hero triumphant.”

 

“Doesn't feel that way.”

 

“Oh?” Lena intones, curious. “Tell me then, how does it feel?”

 

Kara's eyes go soft.

 

“Like I failed you.”

 

Lena's mouth drops open at this, but she's quick to snap it shut, her expression going cold once again.

 

“Ah yes,” she clucks her tongue. “Always trying to save me.”

 

“Not save you,” Kara insists. “Accept you. For who you are. It was me, my fault, I couldn't believe I let myself, I mean, that I could feel the way I did. About you.”

 

“Did?”

 

Kara puts her hand on the glass.

 

“Do.”

 

She bites her lip.

 

“I miss you.”

 

Lena is taken aback, her eyes focused and feisty, but still she moves forward to mirror the gesture.

 

“How can that be?” she tuts. “Here I am, right in front of you.”

 

“You know what I mean.”

 

Lena's gaze raises to the ceiling, where she knows the cameras focus down on her.

 

“Are you sure you want to be saying such things?” she asks. “With your friends listening?”

 

“They aren't,” Kara replies. “I took care of that.”

 

Lena smiles.

 

“Oh my,” she laughs. “Guess I must be rubbing off on you.”

 

Kara looks at their hands, perfectly aligned, but kept apart by three inches of unbreakable glass. Lena sighs again, her head leaning forward to press against the barrier.

 

“You can't keep me in here,” she says softly.

 

“No we can't,” Kara agrees. “The DEO is responsible for your apprehension, but you are not an alien, or an alien related threat. They're going to transfer you into custody of the justice department.”

 

“You don't understand,” Lena asserts more firmly. “You can't keep me in here.”

 

Kara puts her other hand to the glass, but jumps back when Lena slams both of hers against it.

 

“You can't keep me in here!” she shouts, eyes wild and manic, teeth suddenly gnashing like an animal.

 

She realizes then that for all of Lena's antics, all her diabolical treachery in the basking of being a super villain, she has never once been caught. Never had to face up to her crimes. Never been caged. Kara understands the pacing now. The endless movement. If she stopped, even for a moment, in her mind no doubt she would surely die.

 

/\

 

Supergirl flies above the convoy, keeping an eye out for any attempt at a jailbreak, though she knows better. Lena has always been a lone wolf. No partners, or team ups of any kind. No Legion of Doom. The DEO is not willing to take any chances, however, so here she is taking point high above.

 

There are six trucks total. Lena is in the second, her suit in the sixth, and the other four are empty. It seems like a waste of resources to Supergirl, but it harks back to the dissuasion of attempted escape, even if anyone with cognitive thinking ability knows no one is coming for her.

 

Ultra max prison is a six hour drive from National City, and for the first two nothing out of the ordinary happens, but when the convoy heads into a desert canyon a soldier in the sixth truck reports that the suit has started to make a sound.

 

Supergirl's eyes immediately shoot to the second truck, where Lena is still in her same position, rocking back and forth as if she'd tear her own hand off if it gave her the chance to break free.

 

“What kind of noise?” She asks over the comm.

 

Not sure, is the reply. A kind of whirring. Like a blender.

 

Supergirl's eyes widen, so familiar she is with that sound, having been on the receiving end of so many blows from the power it generated. Oh the irony, she thinks. If it were Lex's old suit the DEO would have been well within its jurisdiction to keep it, due to the alien origins of the technology, but Lena's upgrade was all her own. The Justice Department insisted they include it with the prisoner. A small request that just may be their undoing.

 

“Stop the truck!” Supergirl shouts over the radio a second too late.

 

The battle suit rips through the roof, shooting toward the sky, where Supergirl is quick to intercept. The clang of her shoulder crashing into its chest echoes across the canyon, the automatic pilot or whatever is controlling it now, not having enough foresight to counter her attack. The pair go crashing toward the ground, Supergirl herself expecting more resistance, carried down by her own momentum.

 

Oh, she thinks, this is going to leave a mark.

 

But then the suit's rockets kick in, the arms wrapping around Supergirl, and twisting them just enough to avoid a direct impact.

 

“Forgive me, darling,” Lena's voice comes from the suit.

 

“Lena?” Supergirl questions. “How are you doing this?”

 

“Now, now,” she teases. “Can't reveal all my secrets, can I?”

 

A soldier from the second truck reports over the radio, that Lena Luthor is now talking to herself, and Alex interrupts on the line that the convoy stop immediately. Supergirl is still tangled up with the suit, trying to free herself, but the arms have hers restricted against her sides.

 

“Lena,” she says to the suit. “Please stop.”

 

“I'm afraid I can't do that,” Lena replies. “Do you know why the caged bird sings? Because I do not, and I really don't care to find out.”

 

The suit guides them back toward the ground, swiftly letting go of Supergirl, then pouncing back atop to drive her face down into the sand. She coughs and sputters, pushing herself up when the weight of the armor is gone, looking back to the convoy to see two dozen soldiers firing at the suit which hovers just above the second truck.

 

A quick flash of green light pulses from its hands, all the soldiers instantly falling on their backs to the ground, Alex among them. Then it rips into the top of the truck. Supergirl races toward it, arriving just in time to see Lena access the back panel, before slipping inside.

 

“My sister!” She shouts. “What did you do?”

 

The armor whirs and clicks, as the panels slide into place, Lena taking physical control.

 

“They're not dead,” she offers nonchalantly. “You should know that. They'll wake up in about an hour or so.”

 

Supergirl, despite herself, sighs in relief.

 

“Lena,” she starts after a moment. “This is... It's too big. I can't just let you go.”

 

“Of course you can't,” comes the reply. “But you will.”

 

The helmet comes off, as green clashes against blue, lingering feelings radiating between them like a wave.

 

“Listen to me very carefully,” Lena offers caustically. “If you put me back in a cell, I will die. That is not a threat, or an exaggeration. It is a simple statement of fact. I will die.”

 

She steps closer to Supergirl, who doesn't back down.

 

“Some animals darling, are never meant to be caged.”

 

Tears well in Supergirl's eyes, which she manages to hold back with a nod.

 

“Make it look good?”

 

Lena leans down to kiss her.

 

“Don't I always?”

 

/\

 

Lena can't help but gasp a little, when the giant door groans open, her breath clearly visible through the arctic air. Shifting back when Kara drops the key, a strange little golden rod adorned with the family crest both she and her cousin wear, that apparently weighs a couple thousand tons no machine or being on Earth can ever pick up she laughs.

 

“I guess the noble house of El doesn't have to worry about home burglary,” she teases.

 

Kara shrugs in reply.

 

“Not that a few choice enemies haven't tried,” she admits.

 

Lena looks down to the key, then back to Kara with a curious glance.

 

“Oh, now you have to tell me who.”

 

“Well there's your brother,” Kara clicks off, raising her index finger. “Parasite,” with her middle. “Brainiac,” her ring. “And Mister Mxyzptlk,” finally on her pinkie. “Who actually made it inside, annoying little imp with his fifth dimension magic.”

 

Lena gazes upward at the grand entrance hall.

 

“Yes, I imagine Lex would have killed to get in here. Which begs the question, why am I allowed a visit?”

 

For a moment, Kara looks sheepish.

 

“This is the one place on Earth no one would look for you.”

 

“I see,” Lena accepts with a smirk. “I suppose it is a bit flattering, being an entire planet's most wanted criminal.”

 

Kara steps closer, reaching for Lena's hand.

 

“So there are no other ulterior motives to my presence then?” she teases.

 

Kara shakes her head. “None, whatsoever.”

 

“Sweetheart,” Lena hums, lifting a hand to brush a lock of hair away from Kara's forehead. “If this is your seduction technique, might I make a suggestion?”

 

“Sure?”

 

“Subtle is not your specialty, you're likely to make more headway with a direct approach.”

 

Kara's lips press against hers.

 

“Like that?”

 

Lena smiles.

 

“Exactly that.”

 

-

 

Later, when they're curled around each other under a single white sheet, Lena can't stop giggling into Kara's shoulder, only stopping herself every few seconds to press small kisses against her skin.

 

“What?” Kara questions. “Is so funny?”

 

Lena gives another round of kisses to Kara's collarbone, one two and three.

 

“Nothing really,” she admits. “A Super and a Luthor, falling into bed together within the confines of the Fortress of Solitude, it's hard not to see the humor in it.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“Just that,” she starts, pauses for another moment of giggles, then brings her finger to tease under Kara's chin. “My brother's infatuation with your cousin, had he not gone truly mad, they may have been just as likely to end up here as we did.”

 

“What?” Kara reiterates, slightly stunned.

 

“He was obsessed,” Lena goes on. “Far beyond any clinical definition. So much that, what's the phrase? There is no heterosexual explanation for this?”

 

“I... Had no idea.”

 

“Yeah well,” Lena sighs. “Lex didn't do labels. Unless you used genius when describing him, he never objected to that.”

 

Kara doesn't reply.

 

“I just blew your mind a little bit,” Lena taunts with a grin. “Didn't I?”

 

Kara laughs.

 

“Little bit,” she admits.

 

They're quiet a moment, simply enjoying each others presence.

 

“I meant what I said,” Kara begins when the moment ends. “Back at the DEO. About missing you.”

 

Lena shifts to kiss her neck.

 

“I know you did.”

 

Kara sighs.

 

“And about the whole expiration date thing. I didn't mean, that is, I didn't think it would be that exact moment. I didn't want it to end there, or ever, really. I was just trying to open up a conversation, the whole good versus evil thing, how we can't change who we are. It would be something we would have to deal with eventually.”

 

She shifts to meet Lena's eyes.

 

“It never meant that I didn't want to try.”

 

Lena kisses her, slow and sweet.

 

“And do you still?” She questions. “Want to?”

 

“Yes,” comes out a whisper from Kara's lips before they kiss again. “It may never work. For a million reasons. But-”

 

“A love like ours,” Lena finishes. “Is the reason why myths are created.”

 

 


End file.
